| |
| YES, Nightingale, through all the summer-time | |
| We followed on, from moon to golden moon; | |
| From where Salerno day-dreams in the noon, | |
| And the far rose of Pæstum once did climb. | |
| All the white way beside the girdling blue, | 5 |
| Through sun-shrill vines and campanile chime, | |
| We listened;—from the old year to the new. | |
| Brown bird, and where were you? | |
| |
| You, that Ravello lured not, throned on high | |
| And filled with singing out of sun-burned throats? | 10 |
| Nor yet Minore of the flame-sailed boats; | |
| Nor yet—of all bird-song should glorify— | |
| Assisi, Little Portion of the blest, | |
| Assisi, in the bosom of the sky, | |
| Where God’s own singer thatched his sunward nest | 15 |
| That little, heavenliest! | |
| |
| And north and north, to where the hedge-rows are, | |
| That beckon with white looks an endless way; | |
| Where, through the fair wet silverness of May, | |
| A lamb shines out as sudden as a star, | 20 |
| Among the cloudy sheep; and green, and pale, | |
| The may-trees reach and glimmer, near or far, | |
| And the red may-trees wear a shining veil. | |
| And still, no nightingale! | |
| |
| The one vain longing,—through all journeyings, | 25 |
| The one: in every hushed and hearkening spot,— | |
| All the soft-swarming dark where you were not, | |
| Still longed for! Yes, for sake of dreams and wings, | |
| And wonders, that your own must ever make | |
| To bower you close, with all hearts’ treasurings; | 30 |
| And for that speech toward which all hearts do ache;— | |
| Even for Music’s sake. | |
| |
| But most, his music whose belovèd name | |
| Forever writ in water of bright tears, | |
| Wins to one grave-side even the Roman years, | 35 |
| That kindle there the hallowed April flame | |
| Of comfort-breathing violets. By that shrine | |
| Of Youth, Love, Death, forevermore the same, | |
| Violets still!—When falls, to leave no sign, | |
| The arch of Constantine. | 40 |
| |
| Most for his sake we dreamed. Tho’ not as he, | |
| From that lone spirit, brimmed with human woe. | |
| Your song once shook to surging overflow. | |
| How was it, sovran dweller of the tree, | |
| His cry, still throbbing in the flooded shell | 45 |
| Of silence with remembered melody, | |
| Could draw from you no answer to the spell? | |
| —O Voice, O Philomel? | |
| |
| Long time we wondered (and we knew not why):— | |
| Nor dream, nor prayer, of wayside gladness born, | 50 |
| Nor vineyards waiting, nor reproachful thorn, | |
| Nor yet the nested hill-towns set so high | |
| All the white way beside the girdling blue,— | |
| Nor olives, gray against a golden sky, | |
| Could serve to wake that rapturous voice of you; | 55 |
| But the wise silence knew. | |
| |
| O Nightingale unheard!—Unheard alone, | |
| Throughout that woven music of the days | |
| From the faint sea-rim to the market-place, | |
| And ring of hammers on cathedral stone! | 60 |
| So be it, better so: that there should fail | |
| For sun-filled ones, one blessèd thing unknown. | |
| To them, be hid forever,—and all hail! | |
| Sing never, Nightingale. | |
| |
| Sing, for the others! Sing; to some pale cheek | 65 |
| Against the window, like a starving flower. | |
| Loose, with your singing, one poor pilgrim hour | |
| Of journey, with some Heart’s Desire to seek. | |
| Loose, with your singing, captives such as these | |
| In misery and iron, hearts too meek, | 70 |
| For voyage—voyage over dreamful seas | |
| To lost Hesperides. | |
| |
| Sing not for free-men. Ah, but sing for whom | |
| The walls shut in; and even as eyes that fade, | |
| The windows take no heed of light nor shade,— | 75 |
| The leaves are lost in mutterings of the loom. | |
| Sing near! So in that golden overflowing | |
| They may forget their wasted human bloom; | |
| Pay the devouring days their all, unknowing,— | |
| Reck not of life’s bright going! | 80 |
| |
| Sing not for lovers, side by side that hark; | |
| Nor unto parted lovers, save they be | |
| Parted indeed by more than makes the Sea, | |
| Where never hope shall meet—like mounting lark— | |
| Far Joy’s uprising; and no memories | 85 |
| Abide to star the music-haunted dark: | |
| To them that sit in darkness, such as these, | |
| Pour down, pour down heart’s-ease. | |
| |
| Not in Kings’ gardens. No; but where there haunt | |
| The world’s forgotten, both of men and birds; | 90 |
| The alleys of no hope and of no words, | |
| The hidings where men reap not, though they plant; | |
| But toil and thirst—so dying and so born;— | |
| And toil and thirst to gather to their want, | |
| From the lean waste, beyond the daylight’s scorn, | 95 |
—To gather grapes of thorn!
. . . . . . | |
| |
| And for those two, your pilgrims without tears, | |
| Who prayed a largess where there was no dearth, | |
| Forgive it to their human-happy ears: | |
| Forgive it them, brown music of the Earth, | 100 |
| Unknowing,—though the wiser silence knew! | |
| Forgive it to the music of the spheres | |
| That while they walked together so, the Two | |
| Together,—heard not you. | |
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